We’re only a week into the closed beta for Riot Games’ new first-person shooter, VALORANT, and yet it’s no surprise we’re already talking about its esports scene. With a new esports scene comes new rules, and Riot has specified that all tournaments must toggle off blood prior to broadcasting.
Recently, Riot released its VALORANT community competition guidelines for all small, medium and major tournaments.
Small tournaments are allowed to use VALORANT to promote their competition, but cannot add words like “Championship,” “League,” or “Season” in the name of the competition, so that people don’t think that the event is part of an official Riot circuit. However, one big setting that is enforced across all tournaments is that blood cannot be shown.
For many games like VALORANT, building an esports scene through sponsors can be difficult, especially when companies are a bit hesitant to link themselves to violent imagery.
For example, CS:GO has blood, headshots, and terrorists—which often makes it a difficult sell for image-conscious sponsors
With Riot future prepping VALORANT by removing blood, calling players “attackers and defenders,” and having a “spike” instead of a bomb, this could encourage sponsors to take the plunge when the esports scene does develop.
